Tree House Naps and Gingersnaps
by elizabeth's lullaby
Summary: Lily and Teddy from pre-Hogwarts onwards... Shortchaps. Also, edited and better!
1. Chapter 1

**a n:** Short chapters of Lily Luna P. and Teddy L. from Lily's childhood onwards.  
Inspired by Taylor Swift.  
I own nothing, honest.

_i'd give all i had honey, if you could stay like that._

You always new it was a mistake taking that Hogwarts job.

"But _why _Teddy?" says the sticky, red headed eight-year-old next to you on the picnic blanket. "I'll never see you _and_ you'll miss out on my special pudding every weekend."

She frowns at you in a _you're-not-coming-to-my-party_ sort of way, her green eyes glittering with every punishment an eight year old can bestow.

"I'll be back every half term," you promise her quickly "And you'll be coming up to Hogwarts in a few years, and then you'll see me every day."

Lily brightens a little at this, and lies back on your cloak, contemplating a biscuit in her hand.  
"But if I see you every day, you'll get boring." She says delicately, eyes closing in infant bliss as she sinks her teeth into the golden biscuit.  
"Well," you reply "I'll just have to keep finding ways to surprise you."

At this, you pick her up around the waist and whirl her round, her multicoloured skirt mixes with her hair in a vibrant halo, and she's giggling with glee, biscuit lying forgotten on the blanket. Her laughter blends with the sunlight overhead and seems to turn up the colour in the world, so everything has a yellow tint to it.  
You decide it's _contentment_.

Just the sound of that laugh makes you glow, at knowing _you're _the one that makes her laugh is enough to keep your hair a happy auburn all day.

*

**a n:** It would be sweet to review!


	2. Chapter 2

**a n: **I'm feeling the hallowe'en vibe.****

_it was enchanting to meet you._

"You came!" Lily cries as she runs up the drive, with arms outstretched when you come to stay for half term.

You drop your dad's ragged suitcase (you just couldn't part with it) and kneel down, catching her cold-wash-lavender smell in your arms. Funny how this little girl has turned out to be your best friend.  
Lily's wearing a fairy costume for Halloween and one of her wings sticks into your cheek. But you decide not to say anything, because she drags you off to the tree house, where apparently you are going to be sleeping.

"Mummy says that you're going to sleep in James' room, 'cause he's staying at school, but I knew you'd want to sleep in the tree house with me."

"Lils, it's extraordinarily kind of you bu—"

"No no no. We're going to stay up _all_ night and toast chocolate frogs so they go BANG and then we'll dress up the—"

"You didn't catch a gnome again," you butt in, because this plan is sounding a little familiar "Did you?"

"No!" Lily exclaims "Smelly _gnomes_ aren't allowed in the tree house." She grins "Only smelly Teddy's."

"Oi!" you gasp theatrically, making her giggle, but she just points up to the tree house, wrist jangling with bangles.

You gasp, because whatever Lily's done, it's astonishing.  
She's mastered that _tiny_ bit of magic you can do without a wand, and grown a plant that _sparkles_ up the wooden walls that you and Harry built together two summers ago. She's put pumpkin lanterns on the little balcony, and wrapped scarves around the rungs of the ladder. And somehow, she's caught a fairy in a jar, that's letting off magenta light.  
It really looks _magical. _

"Come on, I've got a picnic!" She insists, climbing up the ladder first as usual.

You're about to climb after her, when you notice a gnome tied up behind the tree trunk.  
You not one for creature cruelty, so you do what any decent wizard would do. You take off the scarf from its mouth, _then_ chuck it over the fence.

Lily makes you stay up until about midnight, that night before Halloween in a tree house. There's a lot of splattered chocolate around the place. There's a scarf tied around you head, like a pirate, and there's a red haired girl, tiny in sleep curled at your side, warmed by the magic violet fire she told you to make. When you can hear the Potter's clock chime twelve from the open window, you carry Lily indoors, and tuck her in to bed, pulling up her dragon quilt over her head like Ginny does.

You wonder what she dreams about.

**a n: **Reviews = exploding chocolate frogs.


	3. Chapter 3

**a n:** I may be falling in love with my own Teddy.

_you're mortified your mama's dropping you off._

"Don't stink up the cabin too much, Teds."

Lily's eleven and on the train to Hogwarts.  
Unlike the other first years, she wears her too-big uniform as a medal, a badge to show where she is in life. Freckles on her cheeks from the Provence in the summer make her different and quirky. Her crimson hair is wild, almost down to her waist, and she's gets a few stares as she _skips_ to her cabin down the train. You smile from your compartment as she waves at you manically, and opens her compartment door to sit with girl with a long purple plait, who you doubt she knows.

If she's eleven, that makes you twenty two, and although you're young, you're a respected member of the Hogwarts staff teaching Astronomy.

You slip into your own cabin with professors Longbottom and Sprout, who are deep in conversation about the properties of Nargle dung.

You resign yourself to a few hours of chocolate frogs and a battered paperback, and wishing you could be young enough to hang around in Lily's compartment. You could blow up the frogs just like in the old days, and watch the crazy world fly by the window.

*

**a n:** Review, and Teddy might stop denying...


	4. Chapter 4

**a n:** Implied Lysander/Lily... what is happening to me?

_you sit in class next to a red headed Abigail, who's soon one of your best friends_

She's the awkward little Ravenclaw in the second row who asks all the questions because she's _knows_ you.

And the trouble is; she knows practically all the first year syllabus, because of all those times you lay out in the garden stargazing.

You try to pretend that wasn't what you were trying to do all along, because giving Lily a slacker subject purely because she's your eleven year old best friend is simply _not_ _on_.

And you pretend you don't notice her passing notes to her new friends, and reading her muggle vampire novel under the table (she _loves _reading about how they get it all wrong), because she finishes each task half an hour before the rest of her class. The only one who seems to keep up with her is Scamander, and you don't like the way he looks at her _at all. _Poor Scamander now has quite a lot of detentions to deal with.

She smiles at you in a little sister sort of way over her books and parchment, and you can't help seeing how she _shines _with confidence, you couldn't be happier that she fits right in at school.

But Lily's freckled face belongs to the countryside walks around Godric's Hollow, and fairy tale books, and cheap biscuits on a paper plate in tree houses. To you, she doesn't belong to this world of rushing and foot-long essays, kissing and spilled ink.

**a n: **Well I had to put in my house really, didn't I? Ravenclaws for the win.


End file.
